Genoa and Taranto: Port Cities’ Complicated Relationship with the Sea

This month’s Lapilli+ hosts a reflection by our very own Guglielmo Mattioli, inspired by a recent story he wrote for National Geographic. The article brought him to Taranto, where he reported on the ancient population of dolphins living in the waters off the Apulian city. Guglielmo, a Genoese by birth, couldn't help but compare the relationship with the sea that makes these two Italian port cities — Genoa and Taranto — so different yet so similar.

In May this year, I visited Taranto to report  an article for National Geographic and couldn't help but notice many similarities with my hometown of Genoa.

As in Genoa, the Apulian city is home to an immense steel mill that has been a driver of the local economy but also an environmental and reputational burden. And, as in Genoa, miles of coastline are inaccessible or have been cemented over to expand the port and industrial activities.

In Taranto, the first Italian major port one encounters from the Suez Canal, strategic and military interests are concentrated in a way that they are not in Genoa. Here, the Italian navy has its main base, which occupies much of the city's coastline, and NATO has its own command.

Genoa is a city on the sea, but Taranto is a city of the sea. 

"We have salt water running through our veins," Maristella Massari, a friend and local journalist, tells me as we eat some delicious fried mussels in the old city.

In Taranto, the sea is everywhere; you can see it from every vantage point. The city is a peninsula squeezed between two seas: on one side, the Mar Grande, and on the other, the Mar Piccolo. The old town is an island surrounded by these two seas.

However, as Mayor Rinaldo Melucci explained to me, "In the last century, we have turned our backs on the sea. Despite having all this sea, we have not lived as a maritime city. The navy, the industries and the port have segregated the city's seafronts, also affecting the social dimension of the maritime city."

In recent years, the city has been trying to reconnect with the sea, increasing access to the urban shoreline and investing in sea-related activities. In this effort, the city's history is playing a key role.